Posts In: being human

by Amy Caldwell

One morning, while I was practicing in my usual spot outside on our back deck, I took a photo to see if the backbend looked like it felt. In the photo, I see strength and openness, I feel presence and persistence. I also see and feel a place adjacent to my heart that is challenging to bend.

I’ve been focused on the physiological theme of back-bending and its alignment: long torso on all sides with balanced core engagement. The corresponding mindfulness theme I am exploring is conscious participation:

How can we arrive in the present, allow ourselves to be OK with what we are feeling, then to engage in the next moment with openness, curiosity, presence, and kindness?

As I physically and energetically explore opening my heart, there is intense love intermingled with fear. Not fear of my own death or harm, but fear that the safety of my beloveds is out of my control. We continually seek to be equally grounded and spacious, strong and open, balanced with present moment awareness and love. As we age, we have to work harder at both – not to become set in our ways, closed and rigid.

“Every movement toward flexibility, there must be an equivalent movement toward strength.”

– Diana Beardsley

What is it that you need more of in your practice? In your life?

How can we metaphorically open our hearts while remaining strong and grounded in the present?

How can we stand up for what we believe is true and right, while simultaneously loving our adversary as a fellow human who is also doing what they believe is true and right?

As Pema Chödrön advises, we can let go of fear and control… even while embracing the groundlessness of being human. Sometimes the way forward is not without, but within.

Amy Caldwell
Contributing Writer

Amy (E-RYT 500) has dedicated herself to the practice, study and teaching of yoga since discovering its joys and benefits in 1997 while backpacking throughout Asia, Australia, and parts of Europe. Amy is a Co-Founder of Yoga One and lead teacher for their yoga teacher training program.

by Monique Minahan

We are the space that holds the light
   however bright it may be.
We are the space that holds the darkness
   however dark it may get.
We are the space that holds the energy
   however charged and wild.
We are the space that holds the silence
   however long and still.

We are the space that holds the laughter
   giggles, belly laughs and laugh/cry combos.
We are the space that holds the grief
   heartbreaks, heartaches and heart roars.
We are the space that holds the beginning
   the wondering, the exploring, the innocence.
We are the space that holds the ending
   the fragility, the no mores and the emptiness.

We are the space that holds life
   in our bellies, in our hearts and in our eyes.
We are the space that holds death
   of our partners, of our children and of our dreams.
We are the space that holds the question
   who am I?
We are the space that holds the answer
   when it comes, in its own time, when we least expect.

We are the space all our experiences flow through, the space our being rests in, grows in, lives and dies in.

Honor that space. Hold that space. Enter that space daily through your breath or through yoga or through a hug, a cry, a laugh, a word or a pause. Create the doorway into yourself and then walk through it and witness the magnificence that is called being human.

Monique Minahan
Contributing Writer

Mo is a writer and yoga teacher who believes in peace over happiness and love over fear. She likes to set her sights high and then take small steps to get there. You’ll find her walking the dirt path behind her house with her little fluffy dog, practicing walking her talk by keeping her head high and her heart open. 

Read more from Monique on her blog, mindfulmo.com